


To Bring Peace (XMA Drabbles)

by lloydsglasses



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Belonging, Character Study, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Family Feels, Ficlets, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, Post-X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7012357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lloydsglasses/pseuds/lloydsglasses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1. Charles can’t sleep, after it happens. Post-XMA.<br/>2. Raven doesn’t plan to stick around too long after they return to Westchester. It doesn’t quite pan out like that, in the end. Post-XMA.<br/>3. It’s his mom’s face that clues him in. Peter looks at her and he just knows. Pre-XMA.<br/>4. Jean’s never really spent any time with Jubilee before. The other girl is undeniably popular and Jean… isn’t. During XMA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Charles can't sleep. Post-XMA.

Charles can’t sleep, after it happens.

His mind is too full; full of suffering, of joy, of the lives of four billion other human beings. It’s like coming off the serum all over again, only now he can hear _everyone._ Charles feels every single person on the planet inside his own head and there’s no easy way to shut it off.

It’s not the same as Cerebro. Hank’s wonderful invention always gave him the space to breathe, if he needed it. It pushed his telepathy that little bit further, allowing him to flit from mind to mind at his own pace, to pick out needles in the haystack of the world without touching any hay.

Apocalypse pushed it too far, well beyond Charles’ limits of endurance. His power is wild and uncontrollable now, encompasses everyone without subtlety or discretion. It is exactly what Apocalypse wanted: Charles is omnipotent and omnipresent, as if he has become the false god. And all the time he thinks he can still hear that phantom presence, forcing its way past his defences and into his head, beating him down when he tries to fight back.

Charles can hear everything now. He can hear concern, sharp and clear in the minds of his students, when he greets them each morning with shaking hands and deep bags under his eyes. But he can also hear the anguish of a mother in California whose son will never return from the war, he can hear the helplessness of people in Egypt who now have no homes to go back to, and he can hear the fear of a young mutant halfway across the world in Russia, who flees for her life because her whole village saw her conjure fire from the air.

Charles builds shields against it all only to have them torn down by the inescapable push of minds against his own. He comes very close to asking Hank to dose him with the serum. Hank likely wouldn’t refuse – _and if he does,_ says a dark voice in the back of Charles’ head, _you could always make him do it_ – but he would be disappointed. Charles isn’t sure he’d be able to handle that, nor the thought that he’d be betraying his students, many of whom have only come to accept themselves and their mutations in the past few years.

But it’s hard to care when he can’t sleep, can’t think, can’t feel anything beyond the raw press of emotions emanating from everyone else on the planet. He doesn’t know how to stop this, how to control it, and there’s no one who can help him. 

There’s only that malicious presence that he still can’t shake from his head, laughing at him as he flounders in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of turning this into a series of XMA drabbles, because I have too many feelings. Thoughts? Prompts? (Both would be welcome!)
> 
> 03/06: Yeah, I decided to make this a drabble collection, so any and all prompts are great! :D


	2. Raven Stays. Post-XMA.

She doesn’t plan to stick around too long after they return to Westchester. This isn’t Raven’s home – never has been, really – and she’s hardly going to be much use to the school it’s become. She’ll only stay for a day or two – just long enough to see that Charles, Erik and Hank, along with all the children who fought with them in Cairo, are safe. After that she can take off and return to the solitary life she’s carved out for herself; she’s never been needed more, she thinks, because after a mutant almost destroyed the world there’s bound to be a human response.

It doesn’t quite pan out like that, in the end. The mansion is in ruins, the children – for a lack of any other ideas – having slept the previous night amongst the wreckage, and Charles can’t help them, given the deep sleep he’s fallen into. (“Restorative,” the girl named Jean calls it. “His mind needs time to recover.”) Raven looks to Hank to give instructions, because deputy head of the school has to count for something, but he seems uncertain. He’s never been in a situation like this before, she realises, and when he looks at her imploringly Raven understands that he’s asking for help. He’s not the only one; the small group of children clustered around them look at Raven with undisguised hope written on their faces, and for once she finds herself unable to turn away.

So she gets to work.

Shelter and food are probably their most pressing concerns, so she asks Erik to fashion something suitable from the metal he can find in the collapsed rubble of the mansion while Kurt takes her and a girl called Jubilee to the shops. There they buy blankets, camp beds, food and clothes, and while Kurt chatters excitedly about their trip to the mall a few days ago, Raven – to her surprise – finds herself exchanging amused and bewildered looks with Jubilee as they both struggle not to laugh at his enthusiasm. The light is failing when they return, and it’s started to rain, but that isn’t so bad now there’s a metal roof to keep them dry.

She doesn’t sleep much that night or the nights that follow, spends most of them trying to calm down children that she’s never met before, all the time wondering why they think she’s a hero.  
Bringing comfort to others isn’t something she really knows how to do anymore, and Raven finds herself struggling for the appropriate response when the youngest children ask her for a bedtime story, or wake up crying for Charles and refusing to go back to sleep. It’s difficult and exhausting and Raven misses the simplicity of working on her own, of knowing her mission.

She wakes early one morning after a scant few hours of sleep to the sound of yet another child crying, and steels herself for tonight’s round of feeling useless while the child sobs in her arms, when the cries quiet a little. Looking up, she sees Erik sitting beside a little girl with purple skin, one of his hands combing gently through her similarly purple hair as he sings softly to her. It looks like a familiar motion, something that comes far more naturally to him than it seems to come to Raven. An overwhelming sadness follows that thought, because he must surely have been a very loving father, and Raven suddenly finds herself in need of fresh air.

She heads to the lake and sits down on its bank, dipping the tips of her toes into the water as she watches the sun rise behind the satellite dish that’s still facing the wrong way. Raven isn’t sure how long she’s been sitting there when there’s a soft rustling beside her, and she looks over to see Jubilee placing her vibrant yellow jacket on the dew-covered grass before sitting down on top of it. She casually removes a stick of gum from her pocket and pops it into her mouth, chewing blithely as Raven watches her.

“So you used to live here?” Jubilee asks, and shrugs when Raven raises an eyebrow. “I heard you telling Dr. McCoy that his plans for the mansion should include more heating in the breakfast room, because it was always too cold.”

Raven snorts, because it’s true enough. She studies the girl a little longer before answering. They haven’t really chatted to one another, not in the way Jubilee seems to be trying now, though Raven can admit that she doesn’t exactly do much ‘chatting’ to anyone these days. She thinks she likes Jubilee though; the girl is practical and always ready to help, but not as solemn or serious as Jean seems to be. She has a lot of potential.

“I grew up here,” Raven says eventually.

“With the Professor?”

Raven nods and looks out across the lake again. “He’s my brother.” 

She still feels that, even now – especially now. Despite all their differences and all the time they’ve spent apart, Raven can still remember the times they when they used to sit together in this very spot, when she felt like it was just the two of them against the rest of the world. For all his faults, Raven doesn’t think she loves him any less.

“Woah,” says Jubilee. “He never told us that. He just said you used to be a student.”

Raven snorts again. “I suppose he told you I was a disappointing student.” Her lips twist up into a wry smile that’s slightly bitter – she may love Charles in spite of his faults, but that doesn’t mean she can’t wish he was better.

“No,” replies Jubilee, dragging the word out. “He said you taught him more than he could teach you.”

Raven looks up at her in surprise.

“Yeah,” Jubilee continues. “He got all philosophical about it – you know how he is. Anyway, he said you taught him that if you want to help people grow you have to stop holding them back. Or something like that.” 

There’s silence for a long while, as Raven tries to process what those words mean. Charles has never said sorry for the way he treated her all those years ago, for the way he made her ashamed of her own skin – though Raven is self-aware enough to recognise that she’s never really given him the chance. But from what Jubilee says, Charles seems to have realised his mistakes – has acknowledged them even, in front of his own students. 

Perhaps it’s time she finally gave him that chance to apologise. 

“I’m really glad you decided to stay,” says Jubilee, snapping Raven out of her thoughts. The girl is smiling at her in a way that falls just short of the casual she’s probably aiming for, coming out more hesitant and awkward than anything. Charles had said that to her once – almost the exact same words – three days after they first met, with a nervous smile on his face that looked just like Jubilee’s does now. Obviously this is slightly different, because where Jubilee looks at her with respect, Charles had just wanted a friend, but it makes her feel no less warm and happy, gives her no less hope that she might finally have found a way to belong.

“Me too,” Raven says with a smile of her own and, for the first time since she was a little girl, she means it.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This popped into my head when I was working on a couple of prompts - because I think Mystique would have initially been conflicted about staying around the mansion. I'll probably write something else about her and Charles at some point tbh bc I have all the family feels. :3


	3. Peter figures things out. Pre-XMA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For zedille, who requested 'Peter & the business of having Erik as a father'.

It’s his mom’s face that clues him in. She’s as white as a sheet when the broadcast ends, mouth hanging open in something that might be shock or revulsion or fear or a mix of all three. Peter looks at her and he just knows.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” he whispers. “He’s…” _my dad,_ he can’t finish.

His mom closes her eyes and leans heavily against the doorframe, bringing a shaking hand up to cover her face. Peter watches her for what seems like an age.

“He’s dangerous,” she finally says. “We’re better off without him.”

She won’t say any more about it after that. Eventually Peter just stops asking questions, unable to deal with the disappointment of not having them answered.

He ends up running, and running and running until his legs give out and he can’t run anymore. There’s sand beneath his fingers and when Peter looks around he finds himself on an empty beach, the crashing of the waves against rocks mingling with the distant sounds of traffic behind him. Peter lies back in the sand to listen.

He thinks about nothing for a while, dragging his hands back and forth and enjoying the way the sand feels as it trickles through his fingertips. The sky is dreary and grey above him, and he closes his eyes when scattered rain droplets begin to land on his upturned face.

_He’s dangerous._

The words play over and over again in his head until Peter can’t stop thinking about it. His mom’s probably right; she knows better than him, for one thing, and if that weren’t enough his dad just showed up on TV trying to murder the president. For the second time, if the guy is to be believed. Peter suddenly finds himself wishing he’d never agreed to help out at the Pentagon. It’s one thing to break the guy who shot the president out of prison, it’s another thing entirely for that guy to be your dad. 

And if he hadn’t been involved then maybe Peter would have never figured it out, wouldn’t have to deal with knowing about it.

He’s spent his whole life wondering what his dad might be like, wondering whether he’d be fast like Peter or just as painfully slow as the rest of the world. As a child he dreamt up other lives, where a faceless man ran races against him – sometimes winning, sometimes losing but always, always there beside Peter as they ran. There were occasionally other dreams, where his fantasy would turn against him and Peter’s gift – which is what his mom always calls it, even when it gets him into trouble – freaked the man out, and made him leave.

Well, at least he doesn’t have to wonder about that anymore. The whole ‘mutants are superior’ speech seems to suggest that his dad wouldn’t stop wanting him just because he’s faster than everyone else.

No, now Peter merely wonders whether his dad would ever want him in the first place.


	4. Jean goes shopping. During XMA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, real life got super busy so I didn't have the chance to actually get to writing any more of the XMA ideas I had until now! Things have calmed down a bit now, so expect more frequent updates!

Jean’s never really spent any time with Jubilee before. In truth she doesn’t really spend much time with anyone at the Academy except the Professor, although Jubilee has always been kind to her even when the other students weren’t. But they’ve never been friends; Jubilee is undeniably popular – always has been, right from her very first day – and Jean… isn’t.

So it’s sort of weird to spend time with her now, though Jubilee doesn’t seem to have noticed. She pulls Jean from shop to shop, asking her what she thinks of these jeans or that jacket and shooting conspiratorial smiles at her whenever Scott sighs and taps his foot. Eventually the boys get bored of following Jubilee around – or, Scott does; Kurt just doesn’t want to admit that he isn’t in front of Scott – and wander off to buy movie tickets.

“I’m kind of glad,” Jubilee says with a grin. “They both seem cool, but I’ve not had a girly shopping trip for ages.”

Neither has Jean. The last time she went on a ‘girly shopping trip’ she’d been thirteen, and it was with a small group of girls from the Academy. The trip itself had been the Professor’s suggestion – as a way of steadily improving Jean’s telepathic shielding in larger groups of people – and Jean had naively hoped that spending time with the girls in her class might finally make them like her. In the end Jean had spent a few miserable hours awkwardly trailing after them, being made to try on clothes that she didn’t like and didn’t feel comfortable in, until they eventually got bored and ditched her in the Contempo Casuals fitting rooms.

“I bet you’d look _so_ great in this,” Jubilee exclaims suddenly, pulling Jean back to the present. She’s holding up a short green dress with a large belt around the middle, and Jean moves forward for a closer look. It’s quite nice, and she particularly admires the long sleeves, although she doesn’t think she’d really feel comfortable in something so revealing.

“You wanna try it on?” asks Jubilee, nodding towards the fitting rooms.

“Uh,” Jean hesitates. Last time, the other girls had left when she started refusing the clothes they picked out for her; she doesn’t want Jubilee to get fed up with her for the same reason. But the other girl merely smiles knowingly.

“Nah, I totally get it,” she says, putting the dress back on the clothing rack. “Don’t wear it if you don’t feel like you want to, you know?”

Jubilee’s words feel like a pleasant warmth slowly spreading throughout Jean’s entire being, and she resists the urge to utter an earnest _thank you._ “Yeah,” she says instead. “It’s a bit too short. I’d probably end up giving the Professor a heart attack.”

Jubilee snorts. “Either that or _he’d_ give _you_ a lecture about how respectable young ladies ought to be appropriately attired.” She imitates the Professor’s plummy English vowels during the last part of the sentence, and the two of them burst into giggles as much at the terrible accent as the mental picture her words conjure up.

“Come on,” says Jubilee once they’ve both stopped laughing, looping her arm through Jean’s. “Let’s go find the boys.”

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, come say hi on [tumblr!](http://lloydsglasses.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
